What?! Big Momma is back! Just when it seemed like Malcolm Turner had settled down and was out of the game for good, he’s drawn back in for one last case. The main suspect is in need of a nanny and you know what that means! In order to catch the crooks, Big Momma gotta take care of the cooking, cleaning, and three darling kids. Big Momma time!
Why?! The bad guys are aiming to create a computer virus that would allow access to all the high-level intelligence systems in the nation. This program will be sold to the highest bidder (hint: it’s not a good guy). Malcolm needs to stop them, but that’s not all. He’s about to be a new father and needs one last thrill before settling into his life as a desk-jockey, suburbanite. If there’s one thing Big Momma is, it’s full of thrills.
How?! While Malcolm is forbidden from taking part in the mission, he goes over the heads of his superiors and learns that the suspected computer virus creator is looking for a new nanny. Disguised as Big Momma he proves once again that he’s the best agent they have and gets the job. It’s just what Big Momma do. At first he’s like fuck these kids, fuck this house, and fuck their tiny Mexican dog that watches telenovelas and drinks tequila (not joking). But, just like in Nine Lives, he soon comes to realize that the only true way to succeed is to stop trying so hard to be a good agent and just focus on being the best goddamn nanny the family has ever had. Once he does that he stops the bad guys in the nick of time. Phew!
Who?! Ugh! Worst. Planchet. Ever. Zachary Levi is ostensibly the comic relief in this film, but I assure you he is not. I’ve never wanted a character to disappear more than him in this film. Everything he said or did was unnecessary and unfunny. Should have just replaced him with another Big Momma… Note to self: make film with two Big Mommas. Oh wait, they already did and we watched it! Hooray!
Where?! Los Angeles, baby. We even get a couple intertitles telling us when we’re at the “Los Angeles FBI” and the “Orange County FBI.” With some beach scenes to boot, that’s good for an easy B.
When?! Never? And yet… always? That’s all you can presume from what is shown to the viewer. I literally scoured every frame for a hint as to when it took place. I stopped only when I found myself trying to decipher a scrap of newspaper flying through a frame. My conclusion? The piece of paper belonged to The Times-Picayune, a New Orleans paper, which is where Big Momma’s House 2 was filmed but not set. Don’t know why the family had old issues of The Times-Picayune lying around their Los Angeles house. Kinda shatters my suspension of disbelief and movie magic. We can make a broad statement that it’s at the end of the school year, right before summer. But that’s about it. D-.
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Big Momma’s House 2? More like The Pacifier starring Vin “Big Momma” Diesel. Oh so long ago we watched the original Big Momma’s House, and it was glorious. Could the sequel stand up? Nope. Let’s go!
The Good – The storyline is at least somewhat more believable that the first. The kid actors are rather impressive: Chloe Grace Moretz? Kat Denning? Pretty solid picks. I have a weird soft spot for Big Momma … I don’t know why, but I do find the character heartwarming in a weird way.
The Bad – I think the fat suit got worse since the first one, something with the face seems to just get worse with each passing film. They really really didn’t give Nia Long enough to do, it is like Ride Along all over again, very talented actresses left to either spoil the guy’s fun or be eye candy. The biggest crime though … the story doesn’t feel original or like a Big Momma story. It feels like The Pacifier with Big Momma dropped into it. Kind of like Die Hard 5, which was just a generic action movie in Russia story with John McClane dropped into it. I guess I don’t really know what else to do with Big Momma except turn her into Ernest (oooo she’s going to camp now!), but it came across as soulless and thus less enjoyable.
The BMT – I don’t think it is a 60+ BMeTric. That is legendary. It is like a 40. It is a bad movie. It looks bad. It has a lot of bad jokes and isn’t once funny. But it needs a hook to make the leap. In the first one the hook was that Martin Lawrence literally tricked people who knew who Big Momma was that this ludicrous melted candle of a fat suit was a real person (the White Chicks disease: they-look-like-monsters-itis). This had nothing to really get it to where it needed to be. Too bad.
It has been a while since I “fixed” (aka Sklogified) a movie. Do you know what else was missing from this film? Paul Giamatti, whose character just disappeared from the sequel. My fix? Get a young guy in as a replacement. He’s obsessed with Big Momma. He’s been improving the suit. When Big Momma is hired as a nanny who has too many tasks to complete within a day what does Lawrence do? Gets his young FBI protegee in to clean the entire house while Big Momma is out or asleep. Oh oh oh oh oh … As Jamie said, Two Big Mommas! The young gun has his own suit and they use it to allow Lawrence to go out on assignment while the young guy has to pretend (terribly) that he’s the real Big Momma! Think Too-da-loo scene from Mrs. Doubtfire, that is the level of trickery that this young guy has to go through during the film. The movie immediately makes more sense too. Like, Lawrence becomes the nanny and then just complains incessantly about doing house work … it’s your fucking job. This way you avoid that weird aside as well. Boom. Fixed. 100% on RT, Oscar for Lawrence, you’re welcome.
We are starting up the Squeakuels category with one of the most hotly anticipated BMTs that I can remember. We watched the first entry in the trilogy in 2015 and are taking this opportunity to finish the series. That’s right! We’re watching Big Momma’s House 2 and Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son! You really can’t go wrong here. Especially considering Big Momma’s House already gave us one of the best MonoSklogs in history. It’s… it’s… beautiful. Let’s go!
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011) – BMeTric: 63.9
(Absolutely incredible. I don’t know if there are two sequels which are as close as these two are. Also the amount films like this increase in rating over time is also very impressive. Sub-3.0 is ridiculous, and now it is a much more reasonable 4.4 after 6 years. Also, fun fact: This movie came out three weeks after BMT started. If only BMT Live! had existed all those long years ago. Sigh.)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Lawrence dons fat suit and female attire once again in second sequel to Big Momma’s House. This time, Lawrence’s cross-dressing FBI agent goes undercover with his similarly disguised teenaged son (Jackson) to find evidence incriminating a Russian mobster hidden somewhere on campus of an Atlanta girl’s high school for performing arts. Frantic slapstick and action-comedy flourishes may please some fans, but a couple of spirited song-and-dance sequences indicate that this might have worked better as — no kidding! — a musical.
(It beat the second one!!! That last line is horrifying. Imagine if Big Momma’s House 3 inexplicably just became a musical? It just doesn’t make sense. What a nonsense idea Leonard. You know what is also a nonsense idea? That incriminating evidence against a Russian mobster would be found at an elite Atlanta all-girls school … but that’s why we play the game.)
(Oh wow. Let’s hit my highlights: (1) The son looks like a monster. Should have also gone major fat suit for him. (2) They are continuing to suggest Big Momma can be totally nude and no one would bat an eye. It is like Paul Giamatti works on it in his spare time because in the first movie it was for sure just nude colored padding underneath. (3) This looks exactly like a classic “we need comedy here … he takes ballet I guess” kind of movie. Just random stuff popped in. (4) The bad guy looks and appears to be ridididiculous. I can not wait.)
Directors –John Whitesell – (BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Deck the Halls; Malibu’s Most Wanted; See Spot Run; Thunderstruck; Calendar Girl; Notes: Veteran TV director nominated for a Primetime Emmy for The John Larroquette Show.)
Writers –Matt Fogel (screenplay) (as Matthew Fogel & story) (as Matthew Fogel) – (BMT: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Notes: Not very much on him. He worked on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs where he with Phil Lord and Chris Miller and sold the Prince Charming script. I assume that is no longer happening since Cinderella itself is made last year.)
Don Rhymer (story) – (Known For: The Santa Clause 2; Rio 2; Rio; Surf’s Up; BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Big Momma’s House; Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London; Deck the Halls; The Honeymooners; Carpool; Notes: Sadly died at the age of 51 from cancer right when he was hitting his stride with Surf’s Up, Rio, and Rio 2.)
Darryl Quarles (characters) – (BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Black Knight; Big Momma’s House; Notes: Maintains a website and seems to run the lecture circuit and sell scripts. I find it very interesting how many people ended up involved in all three movies.)
Actors –Martin Lawrence – (Known For: Bad Boys; Do the Right Thing; Life; Death at a Funeral; Open Season; House Party; Boomerang; BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Black Knight; College Road Trip; Big Momma’s House; Rebound; National Security; Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins; What’s the Worst That Could Happen?; Wild Hogs; House Party 2; Blue Streak; A Thin Line Between Love and Hate; Bad Boys II; Nothing to Lose; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2012 for Worst Actress for Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. Was a Golden Gloves contender in boxing as a youth but broke his eye socket and had to quit.)
Brandon T. Jackson – (Known For: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief; This Christmas; Tropic Thunder; 8 Mile; Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters; Ali; Roll Bounce; Operation: Endgame; BMT: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Tooth Fairy; The Day the Earth Stood Still; Lottery Ticket; Get a Job; Thunderstruck; Big Stan; Fast & Furious; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2012 for Worst Supporting Actress for Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. Graduated from the same high school as Justin Bartha. Now that’s a fun fact.)
Budget/Gross – $32 million / Domestic: $37,915,414 (Worldwide: $82,686,066)
(Just like the Fat Suit and Cross Dressing genres you can see this franchise die with each addition. They, I assume, must have seen the writing on the wall and cancelled the inevitable Big Momma’s House Party where Big Momma has to save her Brooklyn housing development from being sold to Fatty Katsman the eeeeevil real estate developer … I should have saved that little gem for sequel prequel remake in the recap, that’s gold.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 5% (3/60): Unnecessary, unfunny, and generally unwelcome, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son offers more of the same for fans of Martin Lawrence’s perplexingly popular series.
(1% less than its predecessor. Perplexingly popular is our jam. Unwelcome? You mean the world isn’t made up of people watching films ironically? Go figure.)
Poster – Big Momma Like Father Like Sklog (D)
(Seriously, what is with Big Momma just hanging out in front of sky? Makes me wonder if it’s just a default background for a lot of films and I’ve just not noticed it before. They somehow got worse since the last one. Colors are now less consistent. There are greens, yellows, browns, blues, reds, and whites everywhere. awful.)
Tagline(s) – Momma’s got back-up. (C)
(Not the worst but stretching a bit in the cleverness department. Going for a little “baby’s got back,” play, but didn’t quite land it. Meh.)
Keyword(s) – fbi agent; Top Ten by BMeTric: 71.0 Torque (2004); 66.7 Big Momma’s House 2 (2006); 63.9 Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011); 63.6 Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009); 61.3 Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005); 60.8 Mr. Magoo (1997); 58.0 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain (1998); 56.5 Fair Game (1995); 53.6 Half Past Dead (2002); 51.8 Corky Romano (2001);
(Amaaaaazing list. Like aliens, it looks like FBI agents = sweet BMT film. All of those films should be seen for BMT. All would be incredible. Don’t worry, 3 Ninjas would be watched during a Hulk Hogan Hulkamania BMT Bonanza Movie Ultra-Marathon)
Notes – Nia Long declined to reprise her role as “Sherry” from the first two films. (Ha! Sounds like a plan Nia)
Brandon T. Jackson, who plays Trent, was actually a 26 year old man portraying a 17 year old boy at the time. He took over the role from Jascha Washington who appeared in the first two films.(Normal age defying Hollywood stuff. I honestly didn’t realize his son was the son of Nia Long from the first film)
We are starting up the Squeakuels category with one of the most hotly anticipated BMTs that I can remember. We watched the first entry in the trilogy in 2015 and are taking this opportunity to finish the series. That’s right! We’re watching Big Momma’s House 2 and Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son! You really can’t go wrong here. Especially considering Big Momma’s House already gave us one of the best MonoSklogs in history. It’s… it’s… beautiful. Let’s go!
Big Momma’s House 2 (2006) – BMeTric: 66.7
(Fun fact: Big Momma’s House is the film that helped me discover the weird inflection in the 2011 IMDb vote plots. I saw the inflection while plotting votes for Big Momma’s House, but then realized (tragically) that Big Momma Like Father Like Son came out in 2011 and so it took like four more tests to make sure the bump wasn’t just related to sequels. Obviously 50+ BMeTric is an amazing benchmark, and we are hitting two in the same week! Squeakuel Please!!)
Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – FBI agent Lawrence again dons a fat suit and transforms himself into the title character; here, he poses as a nanny to spy on the alleged designer of a deadly computer worm. Gratuitous sequel is an uneasy mixture of stale humor and goopy sentiment.
(This plot is already 1000x more realistic than the first one, where we had to convince ourselves it was possible that a man dressed in a fat suit could dupe an entire town into believing he was Big Momma… including her own grandchild. The main hesitance I have is that this sounds almost identical to the plot of The Pacifier, which wasn’t nearly as solid a BMT as the first Big Momma’s.)
(Wow… just wow. There are a number crimes committed in this trailer that would put Martin Lawrence’s character on a sexual predator list. Also, his Big Momma costume has gotten so good at this point that he would have to spend hours every morning in makeup to apply it. He seemingly can traipse about in the nude and no one notices anything amiss.)
Directors –John Whitesell – (BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Deck the Halls; Malibu’s Most Wanted; See Spot Run; Thunderstruck; Calendar Girl; Notes: Comes from a family of Hollywood heavyweights, including his brother Patrick Whitesell who is co-CEO of WME with Ari Emanuel.)
Writers –Don Rhymer (written by) – (Known For: The Santa Clause 2; Rio 2; Rio; Surf’s Up; BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Big Momma’s House; Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London; Deck the Halls; The Honeymooners; Carpool; Notes: Interestingly is credited with ‘script revisions’ on Black Knight, the other Darryl Quarles film. So was a big part of bringing all of Quarles’ credits to screen in the end.)
Darryl Quarles (characters) – (BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Black Knight; Big Momma’s House; Notes: This dude was big for a minute with Big Momma’s House and Black Knight being made back-to-back. Just a character credit for this one though.)
Actors –Martin Lawrence – (Known For: Bad Boys; Do the Right Thing; Life; Death at a Funeral; Open Season; House Party; Boomerang; BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son; Black Knight; College Road Trip; Big Momma’s House (BMT) Rebound; National Security; Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins; What’s the Worst That Could Happen?; Wild Hogs (BMT); House Party 2; Blue Streak; A Thin Line Between Love and Hate; Bad Boys II; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2012 for Worst Actress for Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. Kind of amazed he has only been nominated once. I grew up seeing him on Martin, but probably best known for things like Bad Boys. Has had a long history with over working (including collapsing while jogging in a fat suit in preparation for the original Big Momma’s House) resulting in several high profile hospitalizations and arrests.)
Emily Procter – (Known For: Jerry Maguire; Leaving Las Vegas; Barry Munday; The Big Tease; Guinevere; BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Body Shots; Notes: A major star (over 200 episodes) of CSI Miami she has a shockingly small feature filmography. She sings in a 1980s cover band (formerly called White Lightning, it is now called Motion). Unfortunately I can’t seem to find their touring schedule online.)
Nia Long – (Known For: Keanu; Friday; Boyz n the Hood; The Best Man Holiday; Boiler Room; The Best Man; Alfie; Soul Food; Love Jones; The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy; Baadasssss!; BMT: Big Momma’s House 2; Are We Done Yet?; Are We There Yet?; Big Momma’s House; Made in America; Premonition; The Single Moms Club; Held Up; Stigmata; Notes: Most famous for Pringles Mom’s Club. Just joshing. Nothing too interesting outside of standard personal stuff, but her next project appears to be starring in a remake of the 1988 film Beaches alongside Idina Menzel.)
Budget/Gross – $40 million / Domestic: $70,165,972 (Worldwide: $138,259,062)
(A phenomenon! It really it very impressive how much money this movie made, although I would think they were hoping to crack $100 million like the original. Still, no wonder a third movie was made.)
(Recent viewings include Paul Blart 2 and Ride Along 2. I do love these plots because, and this will become more obvious in the next few weeks I think, previous plots suggest that sequels come in waves. I’ve said previously that it is like Hollywood must replenish their store of bad sequels. We are approaching a fall. It has just occurred to me that the Bad Movie Golden Age of 2005-2010 came during a sequel drought … perhaps truly inspired garbage films can only be made after being unshackled from money grabbing sequels. One can hope.)
(Oh shit! Right at the peak of the cross-dressing-ploitation phase of Hollywood (I presume … is my history of Hollywood off?). More seriously, nearly a quarter of all 40 movies listed here were made in 2004-2006 … which is astonishing. Having dropped financially from the heady heights of …. well, Mrs. Doubtfire I guess. But still, I assume this genre will go extinct. And honestly? I don’t see why it shouldn’t.)
(Everything about these charts is incredible. Yet another peak! One-third of all fat suit movies were made between 2004 and 2006. What is happening in this world!? This genre is also dying, the financial picture looks dire. You can basically plot a straight line down to zero on that plot.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 6% (4/71): Unfunny and unoriginal. In other words, a perfect piece of evidence for opponents of pointless movie sequels.
(Ooooof, sub-10% is stunning. And there is no way the third installment does significantly better either, so we are likely doubling up on sub-10% films this week. This has the faint whiff of White Chicks to me. Like … you know they’re going to basically make the fact that people pretending to be other people doesn’t work the way they portray it kind of part of the joke. Remember … how the White Chicks looked like horror film monsters and no one noticed? Like that.)
Poster – Big Momma’s Sklog 2 (D+)
(Not a fan. What is even the framing in this poster? Just Big Momma standing in front of… sky? Is she on a cliff? Font is easy (Big Momma Sklog 2) and doesn’t tell me a story. Boo on all fronts. Nothing truly ugly, but nothing good either.)
Tagline(s) – The Momma of all Comedies is Back. (D+)
(Gross. Both the poster and tagline are just lazy. I hate these types of taglines. Unacceptable Big Momma’s House 2. We need more than this from you.)
Keyword(s) –undercover; Top Ten by BMeTric: 75.1 Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994); 72.4 Barb Wire (1996); 70.6 Taxi (I) (2004); 69.1 Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989); 66.7 Big Momma’s House 2 (2006); 63.9 Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011); 62.5 On Deadly Ground (1994); 61.3 Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005); 60.0 Big Momma’s House (2000); 57.8 Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector (2006);
(Besides the last one it is an impressive list. Speaking of Squeakuels if we just shined off Miss Congeniality and Police Academy (ugh) we would have basically shined off of this incredible list.)
Notes – Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel & Nicholas Stoller provided uncredited rewrites to Don Rhymer’s script. (You know, I expected more better notes from this movie. Where are the notes about the producers trying to get Giamatti back or something?)
A small note prior to this post: Last July we decided to take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie. This is the first in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!
Old Dogs (2009) – BMeTric: 44.4
(That is a giant and sustained jump. Some may be surprised that a sub-50 BMeTric film would make it to the hall of fame (oh, only me?), but I would guess it being someone anonymous in bad movie circles lends itself to a slightly deflated vote count. Otherwise everything is pretty mundane by the looks of it, nothing to interesting here.)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Hoped-for sparks from a teaming Travolta and Williams never materialize as the pair play business partners whose big Japanese deal is disrupted when they unexpectedly inherit 7-year-old twins. The stars seem to be having a better time than the audience. Only the youngest kids are going to find this slapstick material (including Green’s antics with a lovesick gorilla) very funny. Notable only as the debut for Travolta’s daughter Ella Bleu and Mac’s final film appearance.
(Two stars?! This is the kind of harmless nothing movie Leonard wouldn’t mind. I still don’t quite understand two stars though, the movie is basically incomprehensible and terrible. How does that get two stars?)
(My God, this movie doesn’t have a storyline! How incredibly cut up and weird that is. Of course they appear to have a 20 minute foray into a camp filled with caricatures, otherwise, how in the world would they punch up the script?)
Directors – Walt Becker – (BMT: Old Dogs; Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip; Wild Hogs (BMT); Van Wilder: Party Liaison (Seen it); Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2010 for Worst Director for Old Dogs. Apparently his trademark (according to IMDb) is having characters sing I’m All Out of Love … Mostly works in television now including the one-season show Glory Daze.)
Writers – David Diamond (written by) – (Known For: The Family Man; Evolution; BMT: When in Rome (BMT); Old Dogs (BMT); Notes: Amazing, I’ve completed David Diamond’s filmography. The only information I can find on him is he collaborated with Weissman)
David Weissman (written by) – (Known For: The Family Man; Evolution; BMT: When in Rome (BMT); Old Dogs (BMT); Notes: Same here, how very odd, there is almost no information about these people. I would guess they are mostly producers now working for a studio on comedies. Amazingly if you look at variety you come up with this fun story. That … sounds suspiciously like Old Dogs. A raucous buddy comedy announced in 2006 to be released by Walt Disney? Most def.)
Actors – Robin Williams – (Known For: Good Will Hunting; Dead Poets Society; Jumanji; Aladdin; Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; Insomnia; Mrs. Doubtfire; A.I. Artificial Intelligence; Night at the Museum; Night at the Museum 2; The Birdcage; The Butler; To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar; What Dreams May Come; Awakenings; One Hour Photo; Good Morning, Vietnam; Popeye; Robots; FernGully: The Last Rainforest; The Fisher King; Happy Feet; Hamlet; The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; World’s Greatest Dad; Boulevard; The World According to Garp; Happy Feet Two; Death to Smoochy; BMT: Flubber (seen it); Toys (seen it); License to Wed; Old Dogs; Nine Months; RV: Runaway Vacation; Fathers’ Day; The Big Wedding (BMT); Jack (seen it); Club Paradise; The Angriest Man in Brooklyn; A Merry Christmas Miracle; Absolutely Anything; Man of the Year; The Final Cut; The Best of Times; The Survivors; The Big White; Noel; Hook (seen it); Patch Adams (seen it); Jakob the Liar; Bicentennial Man (seen it); Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2000 for Worst Actor for Bicentennial Man, and Jakob the Liar; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2003 for Worst Supporting Actor for Death to Smoochy; Obviously a legend and sadly recently took his own life. He was a staple of my childhood and also a brilliant and classically trained actor. There isn’t much more to say.)
John Travolta – (Known For: Pulp Fiction; Grease; Savages; Hairspray; Carrie; Face/Off; The Thin Red Line; In a Valley of Violence; Bolt; Saturday Night Fever; Criminal Activities; Look Who’s Talking; The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3; Phenomenon; Broken Arrow; Lonely Hearts; Urban Cowboy; Get Shorty; Blow Out; Ladder 49; Primary Colors; A Civil Action; BMT: Battlefield Earth; Look Who’s Talking Too; Look Who’s Talking Now; Staying Alive; Old Dogs; Killing Season; Lucky Numbers; Michael; Domestic Disturbance; Be Cool; Perfect; Wild Hogs; Two of a Kind; I Am Wrath; White Man’s Burden; The Devil’s Rain; The Forger; The General’s Daughter; Mad City; Swordfish; The Punisher; From Paris with Love; Basic; Notes: Won the Razzie Award in 2001 for Worst Actor for Battlefield Earth, and Lucky Numbers; Won the Razzie Award in 2001 for Worst Screen Couple for Battlefield Earth; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2010 and 1990 for Worst Actor of the Decade; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2010 for Worst Actor for Old Dogs and in 2002 for Domestic Disturbance, and Swordfish, and in 1986 for Perfect, and in 1984 for Staying Alive, and Two of a Kind; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1992 for Worst Supporting Actor for Shout; A staple of BMT. This should be obvious though considering he is in two different Hall of Fame inductees. Look at that Razzie cred!)
Also stars Seth Green (Somewhat amazingly this was only his second BMT along with the other Travolta classic Be Cool)
Budget/Gross – $35 million / Domestic: $49,492,060 (Worldwide: $96,753,696)
(How did this move make so much money. Why would anyone overseas see this film? That is flabbergasting to say the least)
(That is below Kicking and Screaming which is just about all you need to know about that. Oddly enough the last movie Box Office Mojo classified in this category was in 2013, which is a tad bit odd. Also listed for recent BMT film Cheaper By the Dozen 2 (which makes no sense, he has twelve children, how is he a fish out of water?). Anywho, this managed to get released literally in the nadir of a genre, impressive.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 5% (5/108): Its cast tries hard, but Old Dogs is a predictable, nearly witless attempt at physical comedy and moral uplift that misses the mark on both counts.
(5% is obviously extraordinarily low. Thinking about it and seeing the trailer I can certainly believe that the cast works hard. The screenwriters and director on the other hand …)
Poster – Old Sklogs (F)
(I hate this poster. It is boring. It has no color or life to it. It suggests nothing about the film. Why not call it Old Dads? Honestly? Why ever suggest this movie is about dogs at all? They even put the dog front and center in the poster. I just don’t get it. I would love for someone to explain the logic, because I don’t get it.)
Tagline(s) – Sit. Stay. Play Dad. (A-)
(Besides being cheesy this is quite an excellent tagline. Plays into the title obviously, but also suggests a bit about the plot (him having to be a dad unexpectedly). I honestly wonder if the tagline itself inspired the title, because I can’t really think on why it is called Old Dogs … because there is an old dog in it … was the old dog a metaphor for something? I’m blowing my own mind over here, but I’ll save you the bother and not mention it)
Keyword(s) – twin; Top Ten by BMeTric: 72.9 I Know Who Killed Me (2007); 67.1 The Spirit (2008); 65.0 The Unborn (2009); 58.6 Seed of Chucky (2004); 57.1 Dr. T & the Women (2000); 55.1 New York Minute (I) (2004); 55.0 House of Wax (2005); 51.0 The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007); 48.5 The Ten (2007); 48.2 Scary Movie 3 (2003);
(Oh yeah, my favorite keyword obviously. We’ve seen most of the amazing ones I think. Like the Spirit I think only has it because of clones (or something). The Seeker and I Know Who Killed Me are BMT classics though.)
Notes – The film’s release date was postponed three times. First, due to Bernie Mac’s untimely death. The second time was for the death of John Travolta and Kelly Preston’s son, Jett Travolta. The final time was because Robin Williams had a health scare that required surgery. All of the postponement ultimately caused the movie to be released more than a year after the original, intended release date, finally releasing on November 25, 2009. (Yes, this was something I vaguely knew before watching the film as well. It is funny to think that us “previewing” films did kind of start before the emails and recaps did, just because this movie in particular has an interesting backstory to it).
John Travolta and Robin Williams were close friends in real life.
Bernie Mac’s last released film. Soul Men (2008) was released first, but was the last film he made.
The film was originally 107 minutes long and adult-oriented with an R-rating being disturbed through Disney’s company Touchstone Pictures. After the test screening went poorly, Disney decided to distribute the film through Walt Disney Pictures and aim it toward children, cutting the film by 19 minutes and removing all adult jokes out so that it would be more acceptable for children. (Yes, this is also a rumor I had heard after watching the film. It does feel that way, although it makes you wonder how they did that when the focus of the film always had to be 60-year-old first time fathers. There was also rumors that the Japan storyline for Seth Green was at one point much larger and more detailed, although seeing as it was filmed in Connecticut that seems a little more unlikely).
The film is dedicated to both Bernie Mac and Jett Travolta, John Travolta and Kelly Preston’s eldest son who died unexpectedly earlier in 2009.
Although Kelly Preston is married to John Travolta, in this film she is paired with Robin Williams.
Majority of production, including most of Tokyo scenes (except for the Tokyo airport and Tokyo street scenes that were shot in New York City) were done in Connecticut, thanks to the 30% Film/TV production tax incentive that the State offered at that time. There was no overseas location shoot in this film. (See. I find it unlikely that they could have pulled off an “expanded” Japan storyline without actually filming in Japan for at least some exteriors)
One of the retouched pictures of Travolta and Williams, is actually from the shooting of Carrie (1976). Nancy Allen was replaced by Williams inside the car.
Awards – Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (John Travolta)
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Kelly Preston)
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Walt Becker)
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor of the Decade (John Travolta)
Trying out something new with my part. I’m gonna try to use the 6W’s (Who, What, Where, When, hoW, and Why) to explain the what and how of the film at hand. With that in mind I’m going to keep my part totally intact rather than throw it to Patrick in the middle. So get prepared for some text.
What?! Zac Efron is roped into driving his foul-mouthed grandpa (Robert De Niro) to Boca the week before his wedding, but gets sidetracked and ends up in Daytona Beach during spring break, much to the dismay of his fiancee.
Why?! The apparent impetus of the film changes throughout because De Niro’s character constantly lies about his intentions. At first it is simply that Robert De Niro needs a ride to his house in Boca… gotta say, not the best film idea. Just driving an old person around (although, that’s basically the plot of Nebraska and Driving Miss Daisy and they were both nominated for Best Picture, so what do I know). Once that lie is revealed Robert De Niro claims he just wants to get laid and took him along as a wingman. Ha! Get it? It’s funny because he’s old and he wants to have sex. Ha! But that also turns out to be a lie. Finally he admits he actually roped Efron into the trip because he was a shitty dad who raised a shitty son (Efron’s dad) and doesn’t want Efron to turn out the same by marrying the wrong girl and being a shitty lawyer. Awwwww… or something.
How? Funny you should ask. If not for a wildly improbable coincidence (they meet an acquaintance of Efron’s on the way to Florida and they immediately fall in love) then the plan wouldn’t have worked out so well for De Niro. If you follow the storyline closely you’ll see that De Niro’s original plan seems to be that he is going to get Efron totally shitfaced at spring break and take compromising photos of him. Then at his rehearsal brunch he would put those photos up and ruin his wedding and get him fired. Apparently Efron is supposed to then be ecstatic and thankful for losing his job and fiancee. The real version of this film is that Efron ends up just hating his grandpa… probably almost as much as I hated this film. Instead he loses his job and fiancee but is OK with it because he realized he’s actually in love with someone else.
Who!? Rather than listing off character in the film (which would be somewhat dry), I’m going to highlight a smaller character in the film that I surprisingly like or really hated. I actually liked Jason Mantzoukas’ turn as Pam. The character is just Rafi from The League and guess what? I like Rafi from The League. If it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t have laughed at all. I think the screenwriters knew this as well since what seems like a super minor character shows up like 8 different times and plays a vital role in the climax of the film.
Where!? Dirty Grandpa really did a doozy on its settings. If you weren’t close watching like I was then you may have become very confused as Efron zipped around the Southeastern seaboard. We started pretty clearly in Atlanta. De Niro needed a ride to Boca so we know we’re going to spend most of the film in Florida. They then immediately make a detour to spring break in Daytona Beach. How do we know? Why an obese gentleman rubs his breasts on Efron’s car while screaming “Daytona Beach!!!” Obviously. Once the shit hits the fan we see Efron drive back to Atlanta, only to find out that his heart belongs in Florida and we drive immediately back (conveniently passing a ‘Welcome to Florida’ sign). Phew. This certainly borders on A territory. Like Justin and Kelly before it Spring Break almost becomes a character in itself in the course of the film. But it’s just not quite vital enough. I’m going to put it at B. Better than C territory, but not important enough to the plot.
When?! This is the funniest question to answer. Whoever was in charge of the continuity in the film dropped the ball a little bit. We are given a beautiful exact date for the film. Reading from a newspaper a character explains that Efron is getting married, “This weekend. Saturday, March 27th.” It is perfection. However, when you ponder for a minute March 27th wasn’t on a Saturday in 2016… the two closest years are 2010 and 2021 because of the leap year. We know it can’t take place in the future because De Niro’s driver’s license is valid, yet expires in 2018. So it’s either a 2010 period piece or they screwed up the day of the week. I would guess the latter. It was probably in the script when it was written in 2010 and they just didn’t change that random date. How could they possibly know that a crazy person would come along and rain on their stupid parade. Anyway, it gets an A- for how specific and weirdly vital the late-March setting is.
Jesus, we really blew this one out. Maybe I need to rethink the rhetorical question method (called RhetorWrecked… boom). Luckily no one reads this anyways so who cares?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Dirty Grandpa?! More like Shitty, Bland, Flawed! (I made a list of half-rhymes, I’m pretty proud of myself). Only one question racing through my mind during this film: Am I Unfinished Business angry or just regular bad-comedy angry? Actually to be more exact the phrasing was “Am I like … unfinished business naaaaaangry?” My brain was just trying to entertain itself at the time … let’s get into it.
The Good – Efron can sing well. Jason Mantzoukas as Pam was indeed a delight if you like The League. He just plays Rafi the entire time, so that works fine.
The Bad – I have a little sklognalysis below about what was really getting me naaaaaangry during this film. But De Niro’s character might as well have just been a string of curses strung between “heart warming” I’m-old family stuff. His character kind of doesn’t make any sense. Efron is boring and his trajectory is unbelievable. The entire temporal and geographic landscape of the film is also just weird. They’re in Atlanta, then Florida, and they are there for what seems like five days (they were supposed to be gone for one). There are many many things to dislike about the film, but the cardinal sin? I laughed zero times.
The BMT – Yes and no. Yes because I would put this with Tammy and Unfinished Business as another example of an anti-comedy where comedy is replaced with anger and cursing. No because it is an unfunny garbage comedy.
And I’ll close with a little Sklognalysis deep dive. There were two cop characters in the film. Their introduction is promising (they are joshing around, but in a “you are dumb, you are in jail, have fun being an idiot in jail” kind of way), but then Pam (Mantzoukas) pops out and they are just like “oh, you were selling crack to children, but we like you Pam, so it’s all cool!” Their characters aggravated me to no end. Why? Because they were absurd, but taken in wildly different directions from moment to moment whenever convenient.
Exhibit A: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle – The cop parody in this film extends along the Keystone Kops vector of idiocy, and along the Arrested Development vector of humorous brutality (if there is such a thing these days), etc. They are taken along the vector of past comedies and, perhaps, real life experiences to their logical conclusion. Along the vector.
Exhibit B: Superbad – Inverting expectations. McLovin’s expectations are that the police are going to arrest him and be jerks. They instead end up as fun loving and helpful. It works by playing off a common experience in an unexpected way.
Exhibit C: Dirty Grandpa – In this film Pam himself represents the logical conclusion for a drug dealer (or at least a common portrayal, fun loving and harmless). And that’s where the juxtaposition falls apart. The cops are at turns corrupt, but understanding to Pam. They are mean, but not really to Pam, and not really in general. They are inconsistent, but worse yet … they are not consistently along the “cop parody” trajectories you’d expect, but rather switch between the two aforementioned types: fun loving, and brutally idiotic.
Going against type can be refreshing, but here it doesn’t work because they aren’t consistent. It was aggravating and broke me out of the movie. Their ubiquitous presence also throws the balance of the film off in a way as well because it makes Daytona (and eventually the southeast US in general) feel very small. Without them the film would be more dull. But with them it fails at being at the very least self-consistent.
I call it the Along The Vector theory of parody. Without a solid case of reverting expectations, always default to parody in the direction of expectations. When when you choose a vector, stick with it.
Wow, we really breezed through those two films. I’m ready to dive headfirst into the worst of the worst of 2016. For that reason we’re just watching Nine Lives eight weeks in a row. JK (but we’re definitely watching Nine Lives though. Kevin Spacey is a cat! Come on! How is that even made?). We start with comedy and there was one film whose reviews really made it stand out. Dirty Grandpa starring Zac Efron and Robert De Niro… wait, that’s how Zac Efron spells his name? Weird. Even weirder? My text editor marked it as a misspelling. Meaning that Zac Efron is in its dictionary. Double weird. Let’s go!
Dirty Grandpa (2016) – BMeTric: 27.9
(Yeah, that VOD bounce though, so sweet, so cold (getting so hot and bothered I’m dropping William Carlos Williams poems on you). And this graph is also nice because you can pretty plainly see a couple of things. First, the about 20% of a movie’s votes from its first year of release will be prior to VOD release (sample size of one naturally). Second, the VOD release occurs about three months after (80 days in this case) and at that point we could have possibly made a pretty good guess at its BMeTric 9 months later (same rating, multiply the votes by five). And third, that the rate of vote decelerates four times slower in the VOD period than in the theatrical period. The movie hasn’t been out long enough to know whether it settles into a long term more constant slope and whether that point in consistent across other movies. But something to look at more closely in the future I think.)
RogerEbert.com – 0 stars (thumbs down) – The actor Bela Lugosi appeared in some landmark, perhaps even great, films at the beginning of his Hollywood career in the 1930s. They include Browning’s “Dracula” and Ulmer’s “The Black Cat.” Lugosi’s final film was 1959’s “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” frequently cited as the worst film ever made. The cinematic landmarks of De Niro’s career include films such as Coppola’s “The Godfather, Part II” and Scorsese’s “Raging Bull.” He has been featured in a good number of very bad films in the years since. But this? This might just be his own “Plan 9.”
(I had to include that whole paragraph. That is an incredible slam. Most other reviews are similar, all agreeing that this is likely De Niro’s worst film bar none. I fully expect this to be a dull and humorless affair, but these reviews give me some hope that it will shock us in its terribleness. We shall see.)
(a …. Dull and humorless affair. Likely with uncomfortable objectification of women, De Niro mugging and cursing into the camera, and Efron’s sweet Baywatch bod. Sigh. Mantzoukas will be a pleasant respite in the middle it looks like. In another universe this movie is like the Hangover and hilarious. Just not in our universe.)
Directors – Dan Mazer – (Known For: I Give It a Year; BMT: Dirty Grandpa; Notes: Producer, director, and writer for the Da Ali G show and other project (Borat and Bruno). Also the writer of this year’s smash hit sequel Bridget Jones’ Baby. It looks like this was his first Hollywood foray. )
Writers – John Phillips (written by) (as John M. Phillips) – (BMT: Dirty Grandpa; Notes: UCB alum this was his first full length screenplay. He also just sold a pilot to NBC with Phil Lord and co-wrote the soon-to-be-released sequel Bad Santa 2. He is described as a “rising star” for a reason I guess.)
Actors – Robert De Niro – (Known For: Joy; Goodfellas; The Godfather: Part II; The Intern; Taxi Driver; American Hustle; Stardust; Once Upon a Time in America; Silver Linings Playbook; Heat; The Deer Hunter; Limitless; Casino; Jackie Brown; The Untouchables; Cape Fear; Machete; The Good Shepherd; Hands of Stone; Raging Bull; Sleepers; A Bronx Tale; Brazil; Last Vegas; Ronin; Backdraft; Angel Heart; Meet the Parents; Awakenings; The Score; The Mission; This Boy’s Life; Mean Streets; Men of Honour; Being Flynn; Cop Land; Stone; Wag the Dog; Midnight Run; Everybody’s Fine; Novecento; Analyze This; The King of Comedy; Falling in Love; New York, New York; The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle; BMT: Godsend; Little Fockers; Showtime; Killing Season; The Carrier; The Big Wedding (BMT); New Year’s Eve (BMT); The Fan; Hide and Seek; Analyze That; Shark Tale; Righteous Kill; Dirty Grandpa; The Bridge of San Luis Rey; Arthur et les Minimoys; 15 Minutes; Red Lights; Meet the Fockers; Heist; The Family; Grudge Match (BMT); Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2003 for Worst Screen Couple for Showtime. Is there anything more to say about De Niro? Let’s go with more recent new then. He was replaced on the long awaited American debut of director Olivier Assayas, Idol’s Eye, by Sylvester Stallone which is interesting. And he refused to pose in pictures with Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently after a heated discussion about Donald Trump. Fun times.)
Zac Efron – (Known For: Bad Neighbours 2; Bad Neighbours; 17 Again; Hairspray; We Are Your Friends; The Lorax; High School Musical 3: Senior Year; The Paperboy; Parkland; Liberal Arts; At Any Price; Me and Orson Welles; BMT: New Year’s Eve (BMT); Dirty Grandpa; That Awkward Moment; Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates; The Lucky One; The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud; Notes: Surged to fame with the High School Musical series (which you might be shocked to hear, doesn’t qualify as it is a television movie). He’s going to be in Baywatch, and obviously has seen a lot of recent success in a few comedies.)
Budget/Gross – $11.5 million / Domestic: $35,593,113 (Worldwide: $94,073,028)
(Uh yeah …. That’s solid. Who’s excited for Dirty Grandpa 2? Dirtier Grandpa? Dirty Grandson? Oh shit … Dirty Fockers it’s a cross over this needs to be done. Regardless, a January hit, so I wonder what is next for the franchise. Dirty Grandpa Universe (DGU)? Alright, I’m done.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 11% (13/122): Like a Werther’s Original dropped down a sewer drain, Dirty Grandpa represents the careless fumbling of a classic talent that once brought pleasure to millions.
(Coooooooooold bloooooooooooded. Jesus, that is straight wrecked son. Is Werther’s Original an old person joke? Think on that for a second. There isn’t even much to really figure out with this review, it is simply summed up as “garbage”. But is it boring? Is it unpleasant? Is it just gross? We’ll have to watch to find out!)
Poster – Dirty GrandSklog (D)
(I was actually tempted to give this an F, but the consistent grey-red coloring scheme saved it. The spacing is bad, symmetry is bad, too much focus on the people, and I don’t like Robert De Niro’s face… it’s mesmerizing how terrible it is. By the way there are like 5 major posters for this film. There are several better ones than this, but I remember this being the main one used in theaters.)
Tagline(s) – Lose your way. Find your manhood. (B)
(And every individual poster had its own unique tagline too. They worked hard on this shit. While the main poster was one of the worst, its tagline was actually one of the better ones. Concise and used the clever combination of ‘lose’ and ‘find.’ Unfortunately, the two phrases don’t connect as much as they would hope so starting to veer towards “sound like a tagline, but is it a tagline” category.)
Keyword(s) – grandfather grandson relationship; Top Ten by BMeTric: 78.9 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 75.4 Troll 2 (1990); 70.0 The Master of Disguise (2002); 63.7 Daddy Day Camp (2007); 59.9 Problem Child 2 (1991); 47.4 3 Ninjas Kick Back (1994); 47.1 Little Fockers (2010); 46.6 Caligula (1979); 44.4 The Resident (2011); 44.3 3 Ninja Kids (1992);
(I have a feeling we are going to get a weird list of keywords for recent film. There are 246 keywords for Dirty Grandpa and only six of them have received a vote of relevant (all exactly one vote). The other keywords: compromising photograph, man wearing a g string, gay character, male nudity, homophobia … spectacular. By the way I guess Jamie and I have actually seen 3 Ninjas Kick Back because I think we were 3 Ninjas completionists at the time. Oh and great list.)
Notes – For the film’s theatrical poster, Robert De Niro lifted Zac Efron on his back without any help. Efron confirmed it while promoting the film on Instagram. (De Niro seems like a cool dude)
Aubrey Plaza, who plays a 21-year-old college student, was 31 when the film was released.
The screenplay was featured in the 2011 Blacklist, a list of the “most liked” unmade scripts of the year. (Interesting. I listen to that podcast. The movies they read tend to be … not great, and the guy certainly like crass comedies, so this would fit right in. I can just imagine myself grimacing while listening to this script)
Zac Efron performed all of his own nude scenes except for the embarrassing beach sequence. Director John Phillips states on the commentary that it was one of the most expensive scenes to make in the film. Zac wasn’t actually nude at all and wore flesh-colored briefs which were edited out during the post-production process. A stunt penis was also placed over his crotch using CGI for the split-second frames where he is most exposed. Phillips mentioned that when the restricted German trailer was released onto the internet that a community of online fans were trying to grab frames on the actor’s penis. Subsequently, it turns out this is the one nude scene in the film that isn’t actually him. (ha, I do love extremely expensive stunt penises)
I feel like if The Golden Child were to have aired on Comedy Central during my childhood I would have come away with very fond memories of it. It had all the things that I loved as a kid: the occasional joke, some mystical shit, and interesting exotic settings. It’s like a really shitty Indiana Jones… except my child brain wouldn’t have recognized the “shitty” part and would have just thought it was “like Indiana Jones.” Unfortunately that’s really the only particularly good thing about it: that I might have liked it as a child. Even the things I would have liked are things that my adult brain recognizes as being incredibly strange. These include a surreal dream sequence, an opening montage that better fit a music video than an actual film, monster-human characters straight out of Masters of the Universe, and a part-animated finale. Just weird shit. The weirdest thing though is a scene where the main villain totally flubs a line and they chose to leave it in the film. I couldn’t tell why. It’s not even a funny flub. He just stumbles over a line and they kept it in. It’s a BMysTery that will probably never be solved: why is there a blooper left in the final cut of The Golden Child. The world will never know. Funny enough I don’t think all the weird stuff even sunk the film at the time (it was the 80s after all). I think it just wasn’t that funny. It reads as one of those films that had a serious script with random [Eddie Improvises] notes throughout. Like Beverly Hills III. Just hope that a not funny movie can be made funny enough… and it wasn’t.
Settings 101! Settings 101! It’s become a staple of the first part of the email (along with Audio Sklog-entary, when applicable) to the point where it really isn’t even a game at this point. It’s simply part of life. The Golden Child was pretty sweet for Settings. Not really because the main setting was super important, but rather because the secondary locations (Nepal and Tibet) are rare enough that this would fit nicely into an international mapl.de.map (whenever we choose to start that). As for the main location, it was established in quick order that Eddie Murphy lives and operates in Los Angeles. How do we know? In the opening of the film there is a crazytown montage of Murphy carousing around LA. There are flashes of major landmarks (Pink’s, Randy’s Donuts, and a triple take of the Hollywood sign), along with mentions of Hollywood, California license plates, and LA addresses. Also Eddie Murphy works closely with the LAPD. Basically there is as much conversing about LA as a setting as possible, without explicitly acknowledging the setting to the audience directly. On top of this, there is nothing about the setting that makes it important to the film. Could have very easily been San Fran and nothing really would have changed. I believe this is a clear C+ film, and I love it for it.
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! The Golden Child? More like Cold and Mild! Amirite? Because I mean … this movie is weird. Like just … let’s get into it.
The Good – 80’s Murphy is charming in almost any circumstance. He is incredibly charming in this movie. The storyline is vaguely interesting, especially how they go hard sci fi / fantasy throughout.
The Bad – The movie is boring. It also just kind of meanders around. And bar none this is one of the worst endings to a movie in the history of BMT. Spoiler Alert! Murphy’s love interest dies and everyone is just like “go get the Golden Child, he can cure her”. So he’s like “okay” then drives around LA for like 10 minutes, see a Tibetan bird, and is like sweet. Upon arriving at the hideout he then just kind of scoops the kid up and the bad guy becomes a stop-motion animated demon and just kind of pesters them on their drive to save the lady. It was nonsense and kind of ruined a somewhat pleasant if boring diversion otherwise.
The BMT – It is kind of strange to me that this is so crazy derided among critics. A BOMB Leonard? Really? Not even the Murphy charm adds a little half star there? It seems like they were aiming at Beverly Hills Buddha or something along those lines, where a ton of the humor is just Murphy using his street wiles in a fish out of water type situation. And I can appreciate it. I could see myself using the endings in bad movie examples going forward, but to me it was below average for BMT as a whole. It is just boring, not bad in any tangible way.
I’m going to introduce a new series to the email that, like Jamie’s Settings 101, can be done each time. This I’m calling Sklog-trospective. Basically I record a thought before the film, something I was particularly interested in from the last preview, and then explain it and any thoughts in the recap. This time what I was particularly interested in was the director of The Golden Child, Michael Ritchie. The Golden Child was interesting because of its success and large budget to an extent, but I personally found the director to be an enigma. Critics specifically mention how scattershot his directing choices are. He goes from weird niche horror, to pageant mockumentary, to the Fletch series. He worked consistently, but only really met with middling success. It is a strange story, one that I couldn’t quite cut through in my research. After watching the film … the man is an experimentalist at heart. The beginning to The Golden Child is a sight to behold. A frenetic portrayal of LA mixed with repeated clips of Murphy laughing or putting up signs or ogling ladies. And it was a precursor to the film. Stop motion animation is used twice. A very strange dream sequence introduces Murphy to the bad guys. The entire movie kind of makes no sense and is barely held together by Murphy’s improvisation alone. The direction in this film is a major issue, and it only makes me more fascinated by Ritchie. I’ve seen almost none of his films, but I might have to check out a few others just to see what they are like.
This week we pick up in the 1986 cycle where we left off: at the beginning. In choosing a comedy film for the week we basically had two choices: the very straightforward comedy that we know is trash but was a small release no one really remembers exists (Club Paradise starring Robin Williams) OR one of the blockbuster releases of the year starring one of the megastars of the decade, but which isn’t quite a straightforward comedy and isn’t quite as poorly reviewed (The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy). While we would typically pick the forgotten gem, we figured since we are doing this in commemoration of the year of our birth we should try to hit the major releases that may have defined the year for bad movie watchers. So without further ado we are watching The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy. Shaping up to be quite the BMT year for Murphy. Already seen him in Harlem Nights and Norbit got elected to the Hall of Fame. Congrats. Let’s go!
The Golden Child (1986) – BMeTric: 29.6
(That’s what I like to see. Kind of a rare BMeTric profile in that it sits perfectly on an inflection such that the regression to the mean pushes it up and then back down over the past 15 years. And yet all of that said … a fairly straightforward graph.)
Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Top candidate for worst megahit of all time. A “perfect” child (Reate) is kidnapped despite his magical powers; as foretold by an ancient oracle, only Murphy can rescue him. Lewis is more wooden than most ex-models; entire reels go by with nary a chuckle. A box-office smash – but have you ever met anyone who liked it?
(That was rough. I think we’ll see a few BOMBs in this cycle. Leonard seems to really dislike the classically terrible film. Quality semi-colon game by Leonard as usual, but grim prognosis for the movie. Sounds boring. Gulp.)
(Nope. Not jazzed. But that is just a “Eddie Murphy is in this!” trailer. As Leonard said this is right on the tails of Beverly Hills Cop, so they were really going for a similar vibe. The attitude does feel the same, but I can also see that the humor doesn’t seem quite right. It seems like a stretch.)
Directors – Michael Ritchie – (Known For: Downhill Racer; The Bad News Bears; Fletch; The Candidate; The Couch Trip; Prime Cut; The Island; Midnight Sting; Semi-Tough; Smile; The Fantasticks; BMT: Cops and Robbersons; The Golden Child; The Scout; A Simple Wish; Fletch Lives; Wildcats; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1981 for Worst Director for The Island. Huh I’ve never heard of The Island. Known initially for his sports movies, he moved into comedies in the late 80s. Described as “consistently inconsistent” by critics struggling to describe what seems, to me, to be a weirdly varied filmography. He died in 2001.)
Writers – Dennis Feldman (written by) – (Known For: Just One of the Guys; BMT: Species II; Virus; Species; The Golden Child; Notes: Just One of the Guys! I can’t believe that isn’t BMT. Interestingly both Feldman and Ritchie went to Harvard. Worked as a script doctor before his big break with Just One of the Guys. Virus was his last film, but he’s been involved with the writer’s guild for years.)
Actors – Eddie Murphy – (Known For: Coming to America; Shrek; Shrek 2; Mulan; Beverly Hills Cop; Trading Places; Shrek the Third; Dreamgirls; Tower Heist; Shrek Forever After; The Nutty Professor; Beverly Hills Cop II; Life; Boomerang; 48 Hrs.; Doctor Dolittle; Bowfinger; Dr. Dolittle 2; Imagine That; BMT: Norbit; Nutty Professor II: The Klumps; Pluto Nash; Vampire in Brooklyn; The Haunted Mansion; Meet Dave; Holy Man; I Spy; Beverly Hills Cop III; Showtime; Daddy Day Care; Metro; Another 48 Hrs.; The Golden Child; A Thousand Words; The Distinguished Gentleman; Harlem Nights; Razzie Notes: Won the Razzie Award in 2010 for Worst Actor of the Decade for The Adventures of Pluto Nash, I Spy, Imagine That, Meet Dave, Norbit, and Showtime; Won the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Actor, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress for Norbit; Won the Razzie Award in 1990 for Worst Screenplay for Harlem Nights; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2013 for Worst Actor for A Thousand Words, in 2010 for Imagine That, in 2009 for Meet Dave, and 2003 for The Adventures of Pluto Nash, I Spy, and Showtime; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Screenplay for Norbit; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2009 for Worst Screen Couple for Meet Dave, in 2008 for Norbit, and in 2003 for The Adventures of Pluto Nash, I Spy, and Showtime; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1990 for Worst Director for Harlem Nights Notes: As we said mere months ago for Harlem Nights “Major movie star and stand-up comic. One of the most prominent BMT actors of our age”. Mr. Church came out to lackluster reviews recently, although Murphy was widely lauded for his effective dramatic turn.)
Also stars J.L. Reate – (The titular Golden Child. She was literally only in this movie … filmography complete!) and Charles Dance – (Famous for Game of Thrones now. Has never been in a BMT film and doesn’t seem like he is in any others …. but he was in the Australian movie Patrick! Sadly the remake, not the 1978 classic.)
Budget/Gross – $25 million / Domestic: $79,817,937 (N/A)
(As Leonard said this was a huge box office success at the time, the eighth biggest film of the year. But it was considered a disappointment by the studio which was hoping for something more along the lines of the $200+ million take of Beverly Hills Cop)
Rotten Tomatoes – 26% (5/19): No consensus yet.
(No consensus!? But that just won’t do. I’ll make one: A precursor to Murphy’s turn towards family-friendly fare, The Golden Child is too lightweight and silly. While amusing at times, it isn’t enough to save what is ultimately a bore. Blah, even I think it is boring and I haven’t even seen the movie yet!)
Poster – The Sklog-en Child (A)
(I … love this poster. Just feels like the 80s. I find it beautiful. And there is no way to mock it! Replacing those letters would be painful. The only critique personally is that it is very Eddie Murphy in your face. But then again, that was the point of the movie.)
Tagline(s) – Eddie Murphy Is The Chosen One (C)
(Blah. And The Chosen One is meaningless outside of the movie’s context. This tagline could just be “Eddie Murphy is in this movie!” and it would be just as effective in my opinion. It is boring, but serviceable. Especially combined with that bomb poster.)
Keyword(s) – child; Top Ten by BMeTric: 75.3 Troll 2 (1990); 71.7 Baby Geniuses (1999); 64.4 Honey I Blew Up the Kid (1992); 62.4 Saving Christmas (2014); 56.1 Poltergeist III (1988); 53.2 A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989); 53.1 Cold Creek Manor (2003); 50.0 Wild Orchid (1989); 49.4 Suburban Commando (1991); 47.8 Halloween 5 (1989);
(What a weird list and weird keyword. Just child … although appropriate for Golden Child I suppose. I am looking forward to Suburban Commando. Do you think we can do a Hulkamania cycle? Maybe if we open to all wrestlers and got a loosey goosey with the rules.)
Notes – Although the Golden Child is referred to as a boy throughout the film, J.L. Reate is actually a girl.
Originally intended as a serious adventure drama with Mel Gibson in the lead role. After Gibson turned the film down and Eddie Murphy replaced him, the script was rewritten as a partial comedy. (You’d think since this so frequently gets mentioned in movie disaster post-mortems that it would be avoided … but maybe it happens so often to great success that the benefits outweigh the pitfalls. Who knows)
On the return flight from Nepal, Eddie Murphy starts to sing with the music on the headphones on the plane. The third line/gibberish he sings is, “Eddie Murphy is a cool man.”
Eddie Murphy turned down a role in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) in order to make this film. (Saaaaaaaaay what. Although I can see it. He would probably help Kirk and Spock get to the aquarium to see the whales to boisterous laughs. Sigh. What could have been.
John Barry was commissioned by Paramount Pictures to compose, produce, and record a complete score. However, Barry was taken off the project after creative differences and reaction to test screenings . Although Michel Colombier completed the score, a few cues by Barry remain in the film, and one, “Wisdom of the Ages”, was released on the original soundtrack LP. As of the present, the entirety of both Barry’s largely unused music and Colombier’s final theatrical version score have been issued on a limited edition 3-CD soundtrack by Capitol/La-La Land Records. (I know what Jamie is getting for Christmas)
In the dream, when Chandler meets Sardo, Fu and “The Fat dude” and Sardo carves the dagger on Chandler’s arm, the set is the same used in the last few seasons of Webster (1983) (Ha!)
Easily the most interesting thing about Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio is just how true an adaptation it is from the original tale. Watchmen ain’t got shit on this. Perhaps only Gus Van Sant’s Psycho can surpass it. It’s almost a scene-for-scene, line-for-line transcription of story to screen (with some scenes excluded for time). The only thing explicitly changed is a random expansion of the Candlewick character (called Leonardo here). Benigni seemed to go out of his way to include him in as many scenes as possible. Why only change that one aspect? Hard to explain. Anyway, this is probably why many reviewers of the film regarded it as so bizarre. They chalk it up to misguided vanity that Benigni would prance around on screen spouting macabre nonsense, perhaps not realizing (or deciding to not acknowledge) that the nonsense was just the original story. It would be like if a Cinderella adaptation was made where in the end birds fly down and poke out the eyes of the evil stepsisters striking them blind for the rest of their wretched lives. Or a Snow White adaptation where the evil queen has to dance in burning hot iron shoes until she dies. American reviewers would be like “WTF, mate! This is a children’s film!” Benigni simply made the most accurate adaptation of a book that we may have ever witnessed and it probably flew over a lot of people’s heads. The real story just isn’t particularly well known here. Does that mean it’s actually good? Ha! Oh deary me, no.
Do I dare do a Settings 101 for Pinocchio? Seems so obviously Italy. Although the fact of the matter is that I can’t remember if they actually say that it’s set in Italy. It obviously is, but treats it as a given. You almost have to give it a D, just for leaving it implicit. Instead I think I’ll just make a SklogCycle for the film. Don’t know what that is? Neither does anyone else cause I just made it up. Inspired by the ridiculous(ly awful) voice cast of Pinocchio, I’m going to make up a BMT cycle featuring stars of that cast. It would be called Pi-NOPE-io cause Patrick nailed it. Let’s see:
Scattergories (Calendar): The Country Bears (features Queen Latifah who voiced The Dove)
Comedy: Underdog (features Jim Belushi who voiced Farmer George)
Action: The Mod Squad (features Eddie Griffin who voiced The Cat)
Horror/Thriller: Mary Reilly (features Glenn Close who voiced The Blue Fairy)
Rom Com: Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (features Regis Philbin who voiced Ringmaster)
Chain Reaction: The Out-of-Towners (features John Cleese who voiced Talking Cricket)
Sci-Fi: Delgo (features Eric Idle who voiced Medoro)
Razzie: Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (features Breckin Meyer who voiced Pinocchio)
Scattergories (Based-on-a-book): Christmas with the Kranks (features Cheech Marin who voiced The Fox)
This cycle would physically harm me. The Country Bears, Underdog, Delgo, Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, and Christmas with the Kranks all in one cycle? No thanks. Pretty impressive though as I even got a Chain Reaction coming from Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and two transition points, which means this cycle could have legitimately been inserted between the Calendar and Based-on-a-book cycles. Boom. Don’t worry about it.
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Pinocchio? More like Pi-NOPE-io!!!! Benigni is out of his mind, let’s get into it:
The Good – It is a beautiful movie. The acting, given that it is an Italian film (by which I mean, there is clearly a different style of comedic acting in Italy, far more slapstick, which you can see in other Benigni films), is rather good. It is an incredibly bold accurate retelling of a children’s tale from 1885 …
The Bad – Yeah, so anyone familiar with Grimm’s Fairy Tales might know that the original tales are rather, hmmm how do you say? Bonkers insane terrifying nightmare fuel? This is no different. At one point the Blue Fairy fakes her own death and effectively makes a tombstone that says “Fuck you Pinocchio, you did this!!” and he flips out only for her to be like “haha, you passed the test! Hooray!” At another point she has creepy rabbits with a coffin come in to convince Pinocchio he is dying so he’ll drink medicine. At the end of the movie he is essentially working himself to death because he “learned his lesson” about being a good boy. It is ridiculous.
The BMT – … I am very much glad we did this movie for BMT. It is super weird, but at the same time it makes you say “why did someone at Miramax think this would sell again?”. The Brekin Meyer voiceover is bar-none the worst voiceover in movie history. I am not at all shocked that zero people could psych themselves into saying “you know what? There is more good than bad here”. But yet it is an interesting and beautiful movie nonetheless. It is wild and weird and bad and I would totally watch it again with someone game to see a wild and weird and bad film. So there.
Phew. I’m going to cut it a bit short to announce a new project from BMTHQ. It was five years since our first BMT last February and that got me thinking about how much I’ve learned about bad movies in those years and also just how different our approach to watching bad movies is now than then. So in order to take advantage of this wealth of knowledge we have decided to introduce the Bad Movie Twins Hall of Fame (BMTHoF). Last week we voted our first class with the stipulation that it must have been over five years since we saw the movie (so if you look at the archive anything from before Norbit on June 30, 2011. In the coming months we will be producing induction speeches for each of the five movies we voted in and (and this is depressing) at least one of us will be re-watching each film. Oof. How do we find the time (it is hard, our lives are hard, pity us). Without further ado the first BMTHoF class is:
Old Dogs, Battlefield Earth, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, Wicker Man, and Norbit.
I know that I for one am especially excited for watching Old Dogs and Norbit (still the most unpleasant movie I have ever seen) again. And Jamie is going to demolish the 1000 page book for Battlefield Earth. And when it is done a de novo preview and recap will be created for the Archives! Truly exciting times at BMTHQ.
This week we move fully into the Now a Major Motion Picture cycle with the comedy entry. Since I’m required by BMT law to read each book that the film is based on, I requested that we do something real short for this entry just to make sure I don’t fall behind right off the bat. This worked out wonderfully as one of the worst reviewed films of all time just happens to be based on a 150 page children’s book. That’s right, we are watching Roberto Benigni’s much reviled adaptation of Pinocchio! Did I say that Basic Instinct 2 was a vanity project? We ain’t seen nothing yet. Let’s go!
Pinocchio (2002) – BMeTric: 47.1
(This is another super weird rating plot! It goes down and then completely recovers over years. It doesn’t make sense. Typically for a kids movie I would say this might be the youth factor, the fanbase of a shitty movie coming of age and using nostalgia to rate things. But what kind of weirdo kid was watching Pinocchio starring Roberto Benigni? No one. It is impossible. There has to be a weird “it was a hit in Italy” thing going on. It has to be foreign audience power.)
Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – A carved wooden puppet comes to life as a mischievous boy who can’t resist temptation of any kind. Benigni’s interpretation of the beloved 1885 story by Carlo Collodi emerges as a test of one’s tolerance for the bombastic comic actor. This was a big hit in Italy … but then, so was Mussolini. U.S. Version was cut to 100 m. and dubbed with Breckin Meyer (as Benigni) and a host of stars.
(Goddamn Leonard that film had a family! Let’s all revel in Leonard’s need to invoke Italy’s fascist past in order to deliver an adequate burn for this travesty of a movie. This was well known at the time as a disastrous American dubbing as well and somewhat inexplicable if not for Benigni’s Academy Award a few years prior.)
(Well that’s unfortunate. Notice that they do not let anyone talk in the trailer other than to say the word “Pinocchio!” Didn’t want to reveal that it was foreign in hopes to attract more people. Didn’t work. From the trailer it also looks a bit like those Israeli live-action fairy tales we used to watch as a kid. The Frog Prince used to freak me out. Giant scary frog. But I loved them. So maybe I’ll love this.)
Directors – Roberto Benigni – (Known For: Life Is Beautiful; The Monster; Johnny Stecchino; The Tiger and the Snow; BMT: Pinocchio; Notes: Nominated for Best Director Oscar for Life is Beautiful. Although he only sporadically works in film now he is still beloved in Italy and very active in the political scene there.)
Benigni Razzie Notes: Won the Razzie Award in 2003 for Worst Actor for Pinocchio with Breckin Meyer; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2003 for Worst Screen Couple with Nicoletta Braschi, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Pinocchio with Vincenzo Cerami; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1994 for Worst New Star for Son of the Pink Panther
Writers – Roberto Benigni (screenplay) – (Known For: Life Is Beautiful; The Monster; Johnny Stecchino; The Tiger and the Snow; BMT: Pinocchio; Notes: Nominated for Best Screenplay Oscar for Life is Beautiful. Also a poet and songwriter.)
Vincenzo Cerami (screenplay) – (Known For: Life Is Beautiful; The Monster; Johnny Stecchino; The Tiger and the Snow; BMT: Pinocchio; Notes: Longtime writer and assistant director collaborator with Benigni. Died in 2013 after a long illness. Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2003 for Worst Screenplay for Pinocchio with Roberto Benigni)
Carlo Collodi (novel) – (Known For: Pinocchio (1940); BMT: Pinocchio (2002); The Adventures of Pinocchio Notes: Wrote the original story as a serial in the 1800s. Apparently, the original ending to the tale was that Pinocchio was such a bad puppet that he hangs himself in despair. Solid.)
Brendan Donnison (English adaptation) – (BMT: Pinocchio; Notes: Super weird. This guy is primarily a casting director for ADR and voice work. In fact has a company Lyps Inc. based in the UK that is a major player in the ADR voice casting game. Makes one wonder how he is the only english adaptation credit for the film… particularly since he has no other writing credits.)
Actors – Roberto Benigni – (Known For: Life Is Beautiful; To Rome with Love; Night on Earth; Coffee and Cigarettes; Down by Law; Luna; The Monster; Johnny Stecchino; BMT: Pinocchio; Son of the Pink Panther; Notes: Won the Best Actor Oscar for Life is Beautiful. Had a brief moment of fame in American film in the early 90s ending with Son of the Pink Panther.)
Also starring Nicoletta Braschi his costar in Life is Beautiful (and real life wife)
Budget/Gross – €40 million / Domestic: $3,684,305 (Worldwide: $41,323,171)
(An absolute travesty of a US release. Still 150th on the worst openings for a 600+ theater release (it opened at #19!), but obviously earned enough in Italy to break even (probably). The rumor is that it was well received in Italy and that a lot of the negative reaction here in the US was due to odd and off-putting voiceover choices. Sounds like it may have come down with a serious case of the Doogals.)
(Normally I wouldn’t show this, but … what is this genre? Turns out it is Chucky movies, the Toy Story series, Pinocchio adaptations, and, of course, the classic smash hit Small Soldiers. We’ll just forget about Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. There is obviously no trends in the all-important toy’s coming to life genre.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 0% (0/55): Roberto Benigni misfires wildly with this adaptation of Pinocchio, and the result is an unfunny, poorly-made, creepy vanity project.
(Yuuuuuup you are reading this right. This is an extremely rare 0% on RT. To name some of the BMT films with 0%: A Thousand Words, Bucky Larson Born to be a Star, The Ridiculous 6, Mac and Me, Highlander II The Quickening, and American Anthem. And guess what? Pinocchio has more actual reviews than any of them! It really is incredible.)
Poster – Sklognocchio(B+)
(This seems to be the primary poster. I like the base color and creativity used in both the image and the title font. Kinda striking and beautiful in its simplicity. And he can get away with it due to the popularity of the source material. Needs a tagline and almost too simple to be interesting, but doesn’t assault the senses.)
Tagline(s) – None! (F)
(Unacceptable.)
Keywords – fairy; Top Ten by BMeTric: 80.7 Movie 43 (2013); 56.1 Tooth Fairy (I) (2010); 47.8 Troll (1986); 47.1 Pinocchio (2002); 32.6 Pan (2015); 29.0 Arthur and the Great Adventure (2009); 27.5 Snow White and the Huntsman (2012); 27.2 Spanish Movie (2009); 27.1 Get Over It (2001); 25.9 Return to Never Land (2002);
(Interesting list. I still need to see Pan (not BMT unfortunately). Besides that the only for sure BMT film I think would be Get Over It which looks like an absolute travesty. I need to watch that film.)
Notes – This was the most expensive production in Italian film history, with a budget of about $45 million.
This is the first film in a non-English language to be nominated for Worst Picture at the Razzie Awards.
Roberto Benigni originally conceived this project as a collaboration, with Federico Fellini directing it. When Fellini died, Benigni became its director. (wow)
Awards – Won the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Roberto Benigni, Breckin Meyer)
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple (Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi)
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Roberto Benigni)
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Remake or Sequel
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Vincenzo Cerami, Roberto Benigni)
Bad Movie Twins 